


here the daisies guard you (from every harm)

by Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)



Category: The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character of Color, Comfort, F/M, Movie 4: Mockingjay Part 2, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29280531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/pseuds/Jedi%20Buttercup
Summary: She saw him there, standing in the middle of Victor Village, when she walked out of the woods.
Relationships: Cinna/Katniss Everdeen
Comments: 14
Kudos: 34
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	here the daisies guard you (from every harm)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Curtashiism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curtashiism/gifts).



She saw him there, standing in the middle of Victor Village, when she walked out of the woods.

It had been a long few months since that last train back from the Capitol. Most mornings, Katniss woke half-convinced she had never left there, the softness of the couch-- or, when she could stomach it, her own bed-- just an illusion of comfort snatched from the last days of the war. Or a hallucination: some new sadistic variation of what had been done to Peeta. Worse were the days when birdsong and the purring of the cat somewhere nearby _did_ convince her she was safe in Twelve before she woke... safe and sixteen, that is, back before the Reaping where everything had changed. The spark uncaught, smothered again the moment her eyes flickered open.

_Panem today, Panem tomorrow, Panem forever._

That morning had, for a wonder, been neither; Katniss had grabbed her bow on the way out the door, taken a deep breath of the clear morning air, and brought down dinner on the wing with no flashbacks to other times and other faces. Her chest still ached like her heart had been knocked out of place; and no wonder, since most of the people she'd kept there had left her behind, one way or another. But for the first time in a long time, she'd felt like maybe not _everything_ was terrible. There'd been word from Annie; there'd be a new little Odair soon, a better symbol of hope than Katniss herself could ever be. Haymitch had got geese from somewhere, probably Effie; they were proving as obnoxious as he was, and would hopefully give him something else to focus on besides terrible memories or _her_ terrible habits. And on her way out that morning, she'd seen primroses growing along the treeline.

Maybe that had been a sign. Because there was something about this newcomer, standing there in the street with his back to her, staring at the still-standing houses, that made her breath catch in her throat and her hand shake on the grip of her bow.

He was thin; too thin, like Peeta and the other imprisoned Victors had been when they'd rescued them from the Capitol, the plain, sober clothes he was wearing hanging slightly loose on his frame. His hair was so short all she could tell was that it was probably dark, just starting to grow out from a recent forcible shaving like Johanna's, his skin tone more ashy brown than bronze from whatever trauma he'd been through. But there was something about his posture, about the glint of metal from the ear she could see, that froze her in place with impossible, scorching hope.

"...Cinna?" she said, the tremble in her voice strangling it to not much more than a whisper.

His head tilted sharply at the sound; then he turned, dark eyes widening as he caught sight of her. At least those were the same: warm with emotion, highlighted with a swipe of eyeliner, silver now instead of gold. "Katniss?"

She repeated his name again with a gasp, dropping everything she was carrying on a nearby bench and nearly catapulting herself into his arms. "Cinna! What-- how are you here?"

"Same way everyone else gets here, I'd imagine," he replied, voice warm and wry and familiar and so, so missed. "I took the train."

Katniss held the hug just a little longer, reveling in the feeling of her chin tucked in against his shoulder, his cheek against her hair; he felt almost unbearably bony against her compared to her last sense-memory of him in the launch room before the Quarter Quell, but _there_ , definitely real and not a hallucination. Then she pulled back with a careful swat at his chest. "You know what I mean. They told me you were dead! What happened?"

"I might as well have been, for a while," he grimaced. "Then I ended up in a secret detention facility. There were a few of us there, rebels not important enough to be kept in the Tribute Center, but valuable enough Snow might be able to wring a little more use out of us before we died."

Katniss flashed back briefly to the propos Snow had done with Peeta; pictured what might have happened if Snow had brought Cinna out instead, and shuddered, hard. "I can't believe it. I wished so many times that you were with us. When they came into the launch room before the Quell, when I saw what they did to you..." Her voice cracked as she tried to shut the memory away.

"Hey, hey." He reached up to thread his fingers through the loose hair falling alongside her face. "I'm here now, all right? I saw some of the propos; saw you wearing the uniform I'd designed. Every minute of what I went through was worth it, to see you still standing after everything they'd done to you."

"I was only still standing _because_ of you, you know," she replied, turning her head instinctively to brush her cheek against his hand. "You made them see me. You _always_ made them see me. I could never have been the Mockingjay without you."

Cinna paused for a moment, then resumed the stroking motion, trailing his fingertips down the side of her face. "Fitting, I guess, since you were the one who made me believe I really could make a difference, too."

She could almost feel the blood rushing to her cheeks; Katniss had never taken praise especially well to begin with, and this was _Cinna_ , who'd been her rock in the Capitol on more than one occasion when everything else had been shifting around her. How many evenings had she spent on the phone with him between Games, when she'd had such a hard time adjusting to her new reality as a Victor? How many times had her eyes turned to him in a crowd, even when he wasn't actually there? How often had she taken strength from the fact that his gifts still held her close, even after he was gone?

"Uh, how long are you staying?" she blurted, hastily turning the subject and taking a half-step back. "Are you here visiting Haymitch, or... I'm pretty sure I have plenty of space, if...."

He shrugged, glancing back toward the houses he'd been staring at when she first caught sight of him. "If you'll have me," he said, gesturing toward a bag at his feet she hadn't noticed before, eclipsed by his sheer presence. "I don't have a return date, yet. They don't exactly need me in the Capitol at the moment; fashion has moved on without me. And even if it hadn't," he added with a teasing, fond smile, "my best muse is here."

"Of course I-- of _course_ ," she repeated, a new warmth flickering in her chest after so long without. "I missed you so much. I can't wait to tell Haymitch-- wait, did Effie know? He's gonna kill her if she knew and didn't tell him."

Cinna's smile widened, and he chuckled quietly as he picked up his bag and gestured her to lead on. "I've missed you too, Girl on Fire. I missed you too."

He followed in Katniss' wake as she scooped up the things she'd dropped on the bench and headed toward her house. She could almost feel him there without even looking, a vibrant, solid presence bringing life back to her space just as spring was bringing life back to the world outside.

She thought about that a lot as she got him settled in the guest room, then awkwardly took her leave to go turf Haymitch off his couch and share the news. Him being here, it was... it wasn't anything she'd ever even let herself dream about. She'd thought about Peeta a few times, and even Gale. If it hadn't been for the hijacking, for Prim... she'd needed them both so desperately, in such different ways, at different times. But they all pressed against each other's broken places, now; she just didn't have it in her to be the strong one anymore, to hold either one of them close and expose all those still-bleeding wounds. Maybe they could heal together; maybe they could rebuild each other while rebuilding Twelve. Happiness was _supposed_ to take hard work. But....

Standing there in Cinna's arms... Katniss hadn't _had_ to be strong. He'd made her _feel_ strong. Just by _being_. 

Even Haymitch could tell that, blinking blearily at her as she pulled him back toward her house. "Something's different about you today. The boy come back or something?"

"Or _something_ ," she rolled her eyes at him. "You really didn't know, did you? Cinna's here, Haymitch. He's alive."

"What?" He stopped short, staring at her with wary, suspicious eyes. "They told us he was dead."

"They told us a lot of things in Thirteen," Katniss scoffed. "And maybe they didn't even know. But he's here. And _not_ hijacked," she added, before Haymitch's mind could go there; she knew it would, because hers would have too, if she'd heard about Cinna's presence before she saw him and gave into her instincts instead of her paranoia. "I already hugged him, and there was no strangling involved."

Haymitch's eyebrows lifted as he stared at her; then something in his expression softened. "He always _did_ bet on you," he said, obliquely; then he nodded, and made a sweeping Capitol gesture in front of him. "Lead the way, then. We've got a lot to catch up on."

* * *

Dinner that night felt more like family than anything else had in months. Still a little awkward, but more in a way that made her pulse spark in her veins rather than driving her back into herself. Cinna's story wasn't any easier than either of theirs, but somehow, some way, it hadn't changed him; it was as if his experiences had made him more of what he already was, not less. Haymitch and Katniss were survivors; Cinna was a _believer_ , and for some reason, what he'd chosen to believe in was _her_.

Maybe it was inevitable that she woke sobbing that night, from nightmares of his blood spattering the floor of the launch room, her own screams ringing in her ears as he fell away from her. Minds were like that, she'd learned; connections stringing themselves together and inflicting themselves on her without checking in with her first.

Maybe it was also inevitable that when her breath finally calmed, she looked up to see dark eyes drawn with concern, a hand gripping her doorframe tight enough to drain the color from his knuckles.

"Katniss? Are you all right?" Cinna said.

Her lip wobbled, but she wiped at her wet cheeks and reached out a hand. "Better now," she said.

He gave her a rueful smile, then shuffled in, looking comfortable and unfamiliar in pajamas better styled than what he'd arrived in but just as loose. "Sure about that? I've wondered sometimes, you know. If it might not have been better if I'd gone with the coal miner costumes, after all. I made sure they couldn't forget you. But-- I also made sure they _couldn't_ forget you."

Katniss knew what he meant. So many times she'd wished there was some way she could just fade into the background; to make Snow forget about her again. But she wouldn't be there at all, if not for Cinna. And as much as she would have traded herself for Prim if she could, as much of her mother's daughter as she'd turned out to be in some ways... she couldn't actually wish for that. It was all bigger than her... and smaller in some ways, too.

He tucked his palm in hers as he took a seat on the bed next to her, and Katniss gave him a stern look. "Well, that's silly. You wanna know what I was thinking half the time, when I put on that costume and went out in front of the cameras?"

"What?" he asked, forehead furrowing with concern.

"That I wasn't talking to the cameras," she answered, squeezing his hand. "I was still talking to you."

Cinna caught a sharp breath, and Katniss continued, determinedly. "Because then every time they looked at me, they couldn't forget you, either."

Silence filled the room for a moment, warm with unspoken things; he stared at her like she was the most precious thing he'd ever seen, and whatever that meant, whatever it _could_ mean-- she knew she never wanted it to stop.

It had to, of course; after a while Cinna smiled wryly again, untangling his fingers from hers, and glanced pointedly toward the door. "Well. I probably should...."

"Stay?" she said, quickly.

"Katniss...." He glanced toward the bed, then away again; but whatever he was thinking of, age or experience or debts or whatever, Katniss didn't want to hear it.

"Stay," she insisted. "If you want to. _Should_ is just a social construct." People had said a lot of things to her, trying to help her heal, after everything that had happened; not much of it stuck, but that particular concept had. "We broke a lot of those already; why does that one get to still matter? And if you let it... then why are you even here?"

"You put up a tough argument," he said, expression still conflicted. But he did let her take his hand again, fingers brushing against each other's scars. "Do you know what you're asking here, Katniss?"

"No," she scoffed, letting her mouth curve in a smile. "But why does that matter, either? There's time to figure it out, now. If _you_ want. We won that too, you know."

Cinna's eyes glittered for a moment; then he smiled back, slow but sure. "All right, then. Come here."

He scooted up on the bed, then turned on his side, letting her flip the covers over him, and pulled her into his arms. Nothing more than that; just tucking her head under his chin and draping an arm over her back. But she could hear his heartbeat, from there. Feel the solid strength of him, even as worn as he was now. Her bulwark, always.

Katniss wanted to be that for him, too; wanted things she didn't have a name for. More than she'd even have thought possible, when they'd first sent her back to Twelve; more than she'd thought she could ever deserve again, when she'd drawn that bowstring back to her cheek on the Avenue of the Tributes. But right now, she didn't give even a fraction of a damn about _deserving_.

She left her eyes drift closed, and thought of that morning's primroses; thought about the green of the grass, and life returning to Twelve, and Cinna returning to _her_.

 _Here your dreams are sweet_ , a thread of song drifted through her thoughts; _and tomorrow brings them true_.

Maybe it was wishful thinking. But maybe it wasn't. And Katniss was long past done being afraid.


End file.
